“What happened . . . with Pa . . . he didn’t talk at all?” Willem asked.
“Well, not much. . . . I talked a little bit to him, but he mostly just kept staring at the brooch. So I asked him if he liked it.”
“And?”
“He smiled.”
“That’s all?” I was sad that Vader had not done better. “He didn’t say anything?”
“He did . . . but not much.”
“What?”
She turned to the attentive Mevrou Huiseveldt and then leaned toward us so that she might not hear.
“He said: ‘It would be better if they had carved your face on it.’ ”
“That’s all he said?” I asked.
She nodded. “It was enough.”
BARELY AFTER SUNRISE, TWO Tommy guards shoved back the tent flap, a gust of wind dramatically blowing as a small officer in a tailored tunic walked inside.
“Go through their things,” he said, pointing with a sjambok. One pulled the blanket out from under Willem, causing him to tumble into Mother’s cot.
“What gives you the right?” Moeder asked.
“I’m the commandant. . . . That gives me the right . . . and the duty.”
The men shook the rest of our bedding to see if anything fell out, and then they rustled through our few belongings. Moeder grabbed the arm of the one who pulled open her bag; the other twisted her away, ripping the sleeve of her dress.
“What are you looking for?”
“Whatever we can find,” the commandant said, with his gloved hands sorting through Moeder’s things, which were now scattered across the cot. He picked up her brooch and held it to her neck.
“Here we are,” a guard shouted when he unrolled my bedding. He handed the paper to the commandant.
“What are you doing with this copy of the rules?” he asked me.
“It had fallen off a post and I brought it home so I could study them,” I said. I opened my eyes wide and looked up at him through my lashes.
“What’s this, then?” a guard asked, holding my notebook by the spine and fluttering the pages to see if anything would fall out. I lunged at it; I couldn’t allow anyone to read that. He lifted it above his head, and I leaped but could not reach it.
“Give me that.” I jumped like a springbok, time and again, but came nowhere near it. He laughed at my effort. “Give me that. That’s private. . . . That’s mine.”
He handed it to the commandant, who flipped Moeder’s brooch back onto the cot. “What’s in this . . . notes on the camp?” The commandant skimmed through, reading a page or two. I was glad my handwriting was poor and I’d written everything so small to conserve space. I doubted anyone but me could read it.
“Just my journal . . . little-girl thoughts,” I said to the commandant.
He tossed it back at me.
They looked inside the teapot, under folded clothes, in our shoes. Moeder tried to elbow into their small group every time they pawed through our few belongings.
“Looka this,” one guard said, having found more paper near Willem.
The commandant looked through several scraps.
“Here it is,” he said, holding it up to Moeder. “Troop deployment . . . artillery. . . . Take them.”
The Tommies closed in around Moeder, who asked, “Where would we see troops and artillery here? All we see are your guards and that fence. There’s nothing else in sight.”
I came from behind the commandant and snatched the paper. I thought I could eat the paper and swallow it, to destroy any evidence of whatever Willem had been doing.
The commandant grabbed at me but could reach only my hair. I could feel the roots surrender their hold. As I put the notes up to my mouth, I could see the writing. It was Willem’s math work. I yanked myself from his grasp, leaving the commandant with a thatch of my hair.
“It’s my brother’s studies . . . arithmetic. . . . That’s the only way he’ll do problems . . . adding and subtracting rifles and troops.”
I handed it back to him. “Look at the numbers, the writing. . . . It’s a little boy learning math,” I said, turning to Willem. “Tell him, Willem. . . . What portion of twenty is five?”
I tried to send the answer through my eyes by concentrating so hard on it that it had no choice but to arrive in his mind.
“Well, boy?” the commandant yelled.
“Twenty-five percent,” Willem said. “One-fourth.”
My mother and I let out a cheer and clapped our hands. Willem grinned as if he’d won the war. The commandant looked at the childish markings on the paper and tossed it back to him. He released the guards with a head tilt and stood in front of Moeder. He was no taller than Moeder, but he stood with feet wide and shoulders back.
“We were told by sources that letters to commandos have been coming from this tent.”
“What?”
“Messages to the enemy.”
“Who?”
“One of you.”
“Who was the source?”
“You don’t think I’ll tell you that, do you?”
Moeder stared.
“An informant,” he said.
“Someone is lying to you,” Moeder said.
“That has happened with your people before,” he said. “But if you’re up to something, we will catch you, you know?”
“And do what to us?”
“Do what?” His shout seemed to push back the tent canvas. “Anything I want to do. We’re at war, have you forgotten?”
“I am . . . aware,” Moeder said.
“Good,” the commandant said. “We’re watching you.” He backed up and stepped toward the tent flap, turning cold eyes to me. “And I’m watching you especially.”
13
October 1899, Venter Farm
When the call-up notice arrived for the men, they cheered so hard that Cecelia covered her ears. They were told that each man was responsible for his own mount and weapons and two weeks of supplies. Bina’s husband, Tuma, would attend the men as an “after-rider,” taking care of the horses and cooking.
The men objected when my mother mentioned that the issue might be resolved without war. “These are white Christians we’re fighting,” Oupa said. “And they’re driven by a hunger for gold. But it shouldn’t take long for them to see that we will not just turn and run. And then it won’t be worth their cost. Can you imagine the expense of sending an army to the other end of the world?”
My most troubling worries came from an unexpected source: Ouma Wilhelmina, Tante Hannah’s mother. As the men made their final preparations in the barn, I was watching Cee-Cee in the parlor. My mother peeked in and summoned me to the kitchen. “You can pack the things for Schalk to take.”
“Really?”
“It will be special for him.”
It felt like a promotion to adulthood. The kitchen smelled of food and burlap, and a mound of many dozen rusks rose like a kopje in the middle of the table. Dry and crunchy, resistant to spoilage, rusks were perfect for a hunting trip or the like. Moeder also prepared a pouch of necessities for each of the men: extra bootlaces, a tin of salve against sunburn, a few common medicines, a needle and thread.